Please note that the snail mail address details in this document are now out of date, any contributions on tape should be sent to R6 contrib, X.Org, c/o The Open Group Apex Plaza, Forbury Road Reading England RG1 1AX _______________________________________________ How to submit code to the X Consortium Revised 14 Dec 1994 The following was published with the X11R6 core software release in May 1994. It is now too late to be included on the R6 CD-ROM, but the sug- gestions in section 1 are still valid, and the X Consortium encourages all authors to follow them. Prepare now for R7! Call for X11 Release 6 Contrib The X Consortium invites you to contribute software to the contrib part of Release 6 of the X Window System. The contrib code that was released with the core of R6 on May 2nd is only preliminary. People have until 11:59 pm Eastern Daylight Time June 6 to contribute software that works with R6 to us before we make the final contrib release. Only software explicitly contributed for R6 will be included. We will not automatically carry forward any R5 software, nor will we automati- cally pick up any software from an FTP site (including our own). Please make our job of preparing the contrib part of this release easier by carefully following these guidelines. 1. Requirements for Contributions 1.1. File Names o File names should be no longer than 14 characters; some file sys- tems still cannot handle longer names. Your software will not be usable by many people if you do not conform to this guideline. o File names should be distinguishable on 8+3 file systems, such as DOS or ISO 9660 CD-ROM format. Note that we will be distributing your software on CD-ROM in ISO 9660 format with Rock Ridge exten- sions. Even if your system has Rock Ridge extensions, remember that not everyone does. The core software is imperfect on both counts, but these are good goals to strive for nonetheless. You might want to use the checktree program to verify that your file names conform to these guidelines. It is in xc/config/util/. Run "checktree -rcs -ro" in your directory. (If you have your source under RCS, leave off the -rcs and -ro flags.) You may get spurious warnings from checktree because it was designed for the core part of the distribution, which has the stricter requirement that names be no longer than 12 characters. 1.2. Files to Include Imakefile Include an Imakefile that works with the R6 config files. If you are unsure about writing an Imakefile, copy the style of one in the core distribution. "#" should no longer be thought of as a valid comment character in Imakefiles; use "XCOMM" instead. manual page For an application, have a program.man file. The NAME section should be parsable by tools that build the "man -k" database. (On some systems /usr/lib/makewhatis is the script to create the database). The NAME section should be one line: the name(s) of the software, a dash, and keywords. There should be no troff commands in the section. Again, copy the style of manual pages in the core distribution. We may create a manifest of software in the contrib part of R6 as we did for R5. If so, we will list the output of makewhatis along with the name of programs submitted. See pub/R5untarred/contrib/Manifest.ms on ftp.x.org to see how we might format such a manifest. README It is a good idea to include a README file with the following information: o brief description of what the software is o how to build and install it if this procedure differs from what is described in the R6 Release Notes o what machines it was tested on o author's name and an email address for bugs o the date o where updates will appear if someplace other than ftp.x.org:/contrib/ no garbage files The submission should be clean of binary executables, backup files, core files, Makefiles, and other garbage files. PostScript If your submission includes large PostScript files of documentation, please compress them. 1.3. Testing Please consider the following when testing your software before contributing it: o Read the paper "Writing Portable X Code" in The X Resource issue 11. o Test on more than one system if possible. o Test with the current X11 release. o Check that the instructions in section 3.13 of the R6 Release Notes, "Building Contributed Software", in fact work for your software. 1.4. Dependencies If your software depends on commercial toolkits (e.g., Motif, OI), that are not elsewhere on the R6 tape, please make clear in your submission what the dependency is. Submissions with such dependencies are perfectly acceptable. 1.5. Permission Notices Your software should be copyright and must have permission notices no more restrictive than what is on the X Consortium software. We may reject public domain software. If you have questions about the acceptability of your notice, send us a copy early and ask us about it. Each source file should have appropriate copyright and permission notices. Do not include just one notice per directory. See the X11R6 core files, such as Xlibint.h, for example notices. The minimum permission notice we require is as follows: Copyright (c) 199x _Name_ The X Consortium, and any party obtaining a copy of these files from the X Consortium, directly or indirectly, is granted, free of charge, a full and unrestricted irrevocable, world-wide, paid up, royalty-free, nonexclusive right and license to deal in this software and documentation files (the "Software"), including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons who receive copies from any such party to do so. 2. How to Contribute It Please do a final check that you comply with all of the requirements in section 1 above. Send your contribution to r6-contrib@x.org by email. Shar (shell archive) files or tar files are okay. Compress large submissions with compress or gzip. For binary files (e.g., tarred or compressed), use uuencode or the MIME base64 encoding to convert to printable characters before emailing. For very large contributions (say larger than 20 megabytes), contact us to make arrangements to FTP the contribution. You may also mail your contribution on tape to us at R6 Contrib X Consortium 1 Memorial Dr Cambridge MA 02142-1301 USA All contributions will be acknowledged. 2.1. Deadline The deadline for contributions is 11:59 pm Eastern Daylight Time June 6, 1994. 2.2. Timing Don't wait until the last week. If you get your software to us early, we might be able to provide useful feedback to you. The X Consortium does not commit to reviewing any contrib software, but if we find problems with your contribution, we will try to work with you to correct them if we have time. You will get more help from us the earlier we receive your contribution. The X Consortium reserves the right to leave a submission out of the distribution if there are too many problems with it. 2.3. Letter of Contribution We require all submitters to send us the following contribution letter. We must receive the letter by the contribution deadline. You can fax the signed letter back to us at 617-374-1025. If you do not think you will be able to get the letter signed in time, please contact us at r6-contrib@x.org prior to the deadline to see if we can work the issues out. The letter must be signed by the copyright holder. If your employer holds the copyright, then the letter of contribution must be signed by someone with signatory authority for the company. The undersigned Contributor hereby grants to the X Consortium the full and unrestricted irrevocable, world-wide, paid up, royalty-free, nonexclusive right and license to deal in the software known as , and the accompanying documentation files, if any (together, the "Software") (file listing attached), subject to the terms set forth below. This license includes without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons who receive copies from the X Consortium or any party who receives the Software from any such party to do so. This license includes the right to include the name of the Contributor in copies of the Software provided to third parties. 1. The Contributor warrants that it holds sufficient right and title and/or interest in the Software to grant the permission herein and in the permission notice set forth below. The X Consortium agrees that title to the Software is not transferred by the Contributor. 2. The X Consortium shall include the appropriate copyright notice and the permission notice set forth below on all copies it creates of the Software. 3. The Contributor acknowledges that the X Consortium is under no obligation to distribute the Software. By placing the Software in distribution, the X Consortium signifies its acceptance of these terms. Signature: Printed Name: Email Address: Date: [Copy of Permission Notice to be inserted here] Fax the completed, signed letter to +1 617 374 1025 or mail to R6 Contrib X Consortium 1 Memorial Dr Cambridge MA 02142-1301 USA